In which I attempt to bring sketches of how life is lived at KZYX from the GM's perspective.

So here goes, in a more or less chronological fashion.

9:30 AM: Arrived at work to find that Letitia is now able to process credit card pledges. That had broken yesterday because our donor database vendor switched credit card processing companies, which broke our process. After much back-and-forth phone calling, they agreed to fix the problems, one of which they did by this morning. The other problem relates to our bill-of-the-month charges and has to be fixed before the next time we run those charges November 5.

These changes have delayed our collecting much of the fall pledge drive money. When we do collect it, we will take that money combined with what we will receive as our Community Service Grant (CSG) from the CPB. When we have all of that in hand, we will be able to project our cash flow for the upcoming months and know how much we can spend to pay back bills and how much we have to hang onto for payroll and other bills. That will determine the nature of our next pledge drive, which we have intended to do in Feb. for 5 (rather than 9) days, as we move to a three-per-year fundraising cycle. It is all made much more dicey by how shorthanded we are on that front with Diane on medical leave.

10 AM: Rich has gone off to Mendocino to try to hook up the Mendocino studio to our new Comcast cable modem connection there as we attemp to get more bandwidth and throughput for the audio-data connection between that studio and Philo. We moved from an ISDN-based system last year to an Internet-based solution using dedicated transceivers at each studio (made by a company called Tieline). This did save us a lot of money each month, but has been quite problematic because of the highly variable service found with the public Internet. If Comcast doesn't improve things, we might have to go back to ISDN. That would not be good because of the expense, and because AT&T doesn't even want to support ISDN anymore. There are better boxes for this purpose than the Tieline boxes we do have, but they cost ten times as much as what we bought. Gotta pay to play. This stuff ain't cheap.

10:30AM: Ron Hoffar is playing "Twilight Zone" by the Manhattan Transfer, one of my favorite records. David has gone down to Boonville to bring the ABC license to the Dark Carnival, which starts at 5 PM tonight. Now Ron is playing Diana Krall singing "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead." Wow.

11AM: Need to now call the agent who handles our company health care benefit plan to see how things are going to change because of the Affordable Care Act. It may be better for each person here to get individual coverage and have us reimburse them. But maybe not.

12 Noon: Rich called and says the Comcast connection is working well enough to test live this afternoon at 2-4.

Also a bunch of unexpected phone calls, so have not had time to call the insurance agent. Will do that later this afternoon.

2PM: We received via UPS our new "Broadcast Audio Delay" unit that we will install allowing us to "beep out" inappropriate words so they don't make it to the airwaves. We will install it after we finish installing the new main studio control console and DAD automation units, which we will do in November. First things first. Meanwhile I will study the user manual.

3PM: the other donor database problem was fixed and we can run the current bill-by-the-month charges. So that is back on track.

I called the health insurance agent and had to leave a message.

Listening to the 2-4 PM program - so far the transmission is working ok. It needs to be pretty flawless. Fingers crossed.

4PM: had the call with the agent. Choosing health care plans for employees is not exactly simple with all these changes. Have to research this more fully and there is not much time to do it before the Nov 15 renewal date for our current plan.

I am the General Manager of KZYX and the Executive Director of Mendocino County Public Broadcasting. You can contact me directy at gm@kzyx.org See my website cervisa.com for more about me and where I have been.

Coming Up on KZYX

Women’s Voices; Monday @ 7:00

Join Sarah Reith for the next installment of Afghani Women’s Voices. Sarah speaks with Sarah Kamal, co-foounder of Radio Sahar, a women’s radio station in Afghanistan. She’s also worked on media campaigns against domestic violence and child brides in Afghanistan. Her analyses are brave, honest and heart-renderingly unsentimental.

Ecology Hour; Tuesday @ 7:00 PM

Join new host Kim Rodrigues, Director of the Hopland Research and Extension Center, whose mission is through science to find better ways to manage our natural resources and conduct sustainable agricultural practices, for the benefit of California’s citizens. We’ll introduce Kim and talk about her background and interests, look at the history and work of the Center and talk about what she’ll be covering on upcoming editions of the Ecology Hour.

Forthright Radio; Wednesday @ 9:00 AM

On the next Forthright Radio, law professors Marjorie Cohn and Richard Falk join Joy LaClaire to discuss the ideas in the book, DRONES AND TARGETED KILLING: LEGAL, MORAL, AND GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES.

An exploration of issues and stories important to our region with Lorraine Dechter.

TUC Radio; Thursday @ 1:00 PM

Thermonuclear Monarchy - Prof. Elaine Scarry Part 1: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom. Scarry is Professor of Aesthetics and General Theory of Value at Harvard. Her most recent book: Thermonuclear Monarchy, looks at the status of the nuclear weapons arsenals and the question of who has the power to set them off.

Special Programming; Thursday @ 7:00PM

The Candidates Forum for the KZYX Board of Directors election will take place live on the air, Thursday, March 5th from 7:00-8:30PM moderated by Lorraine Dechter. You are invited to email. questions in advance to elections@kzyx.org

KZYX Phone Numbers

Business office 707-895-2324

Philo studio 707-895-2448

Willits studio 707-456-9991

Mendocino studio 707-937-5103

KZYX Underwriting

KZYX doesn’t play commercials but we do have underwriting, which is very different from advertising. It is a great way to support KZYX and in exchange we will let our listeners know what goods and services your organization offers.